On Tuesday night, Diddy asked Aubrey O’Day and D. Woods to leave Danity Kane
, after he assembled the mega-selling girl group only a few years back on “Making the Band.” It was a decision that was long rumored
, but until the show’s season finale, it hadn’t been confirmed.

Once a quintet, the group is now a trio. One of the remaining members, Shannon Bex, spoke to EW.com about the breakup.

“This is real life to me — every facial expression, everything we’re going through,” she said. “We’re just as flabbergasted and shell-shocked as everybody.”

Diddy didn’t make it out to New York for the live finale; instead he appeared via satellite from Miami. Bex said it would have only elevated the emotions in the room if he had opted to be there in person. “Puff is a scary guy,” she said. “I think we were a little relieved that he was via satellite. He’s very intimidating.

“I think we would’ve been more nervous,” she added. “I’m still coming down from seeing the show tonight and seeing the fans’ faces. It breaks my heart.”

Although O’Day was at the finale, noticeably absent was Woods, who had a previous engagement that prevented her from being there Tuesday. “She [was] in Europe, where she was asked to host a fashion show and be part of an awards show,” Bex explained. “We didn’t even know the live finale was going to happen. From what we understood, the meeting we were in [with Puff that you saw on TV] was it.

“Then we got last-minute phone calls about this live-finale Q&A,” she continued. “So, understandably, people had to move things around in their schedules, and some people could, and some people couldn’t.”

Bex admitted that she has no idea what this means for everyone involved, including the band itself, but she remains hopeful that everything will work out and that eventually all the breaking up may lead to making up. “Right now, we’re in the dark. We don’t know,” she said. “Maybe in a year from now, we’ll be able to see if it was a breakdown or a breakthrough.”

Another remaining group member, Dawn Richard, talked to UsMagazine.com about the real reason O’Day was dismissed from the group
. “Puff did not like [O’Day’s] image … where her image was going for the group,” Richard said. “It wasn’t a personal thing,” she added, explaining that O’Day’s recent topless appearance on the cover of Complex magazine wasn’t sending the right message to the group’s fans.